Searching For My Soul
by Nuttyginger
Summary: (One Extrememly Mid Sexual Ref) Lets just say that Cordelia wasn’t quite herself when she slept with Conner. And just how do you prove you were in the Powers dimension?
1. Hopeless

****

Disclaimer: **I know it isn't mine and nor did I make any money from this so stop buggin' me already.**

Started 23/11/02 - present

Summary: Based on a random thought. Lets just say that Cordelia wasn't quite herself when she slept with Conner. And just how do you prove you were in the Powers dimension?

Dedication: To James. I know you're mad with me right now but I'll always be there, as the friend I once was. 

****

Searching For My Soul

Cordelia shuddered as she felt herself fall. I wasn't a scary sort of fall but somehow she didn't think it was going to be a soft landing. As she opened her eyes again she could see a slight haze caused by the sunlight shining through the black curtains. She smiled. She was back in her bed, warm and next to Angel, but something didn't feel right to her. She turned over in bed to wake her sleeping angel only to find she was naked. All sorts of scenarios began running through her head, the main one being Angelus. Instead of Angels spiky hair and sweet face, she found Conners' staring back at her. Horror filled her head now. What had she done. A sound to left drew her attention away from the equally as naked boy in her bed. Angel was staring at her.

She watched his cold eyes grow, colder, in pain, as she realised it was all clicking in his mind. Her. Conner. The bed. God, what had she done? He turned his back to her and made his way to his own room. Cordelia gathered the sheet around her, covering the marks Conner had left, and followed him tentively.

"Get out!" Angel growled at her, his form crouched over his bed, his hands busy. 

"Let me explain please." Cordelia begged.

Angel turned to her, the vase from his bedside table in his hands. "Don't you ever ask me for anything after what you..." He faltered. "After what you did. You don't deserve anything, not me, not my son, not our family. Now just get out."

He raised the vase above his head but still Cordelia stood, covered only by the white, crumpled sheet. Angel put the vase back on the table and walked towards the wardrobe to reveal a holdall sitting on his bed. 

"Angel, that wasn't me, that was my demon. I haven't been here since I was to meet you…"

"Shut up Cordelia." Cordelia closed her mouth in shock. "You can't even take responsibility for what you've done. You slept with my son. You! Not the demon. You!" He turned back to his bag. "I'm gonna leave now for a while. Tell Gunn and Fred I have my cell-phone if they need me."

Cordelia laughed cruelly. "So let me guess, you're gonna again and three guess where…and the first two don't count!" 

"Buffy needs my help, which is more than I can say about here. You seemed to be on top on everything."

Cordelia laughed again. "Now the VAMPIRE cracks a pun." Her laughter disappeared. "It Was Me!" He wasn't listening. "Angel, she won't want you anymore. She's has Spikey now and I hear he's on top of things too. Buffy's a right little Vamp Layer isn't she. Hey, you never know, Spikey might let you join in. You were always into that kinky stuff weren't you."

The vase travelled through the air at an alarming speed, shattering as it hit the opposite door frame, about a metre from Cordelia's head, yet she still didn't move. Angel grabbed her bag and barged past her. Cordelia watched as his hulking figure disappeared down the stairs, and a few moments later, his Plymouth convertible's engine starting up and roaring away. She rested against the door frame, sliding to the floor as her legs finally gave up their support, the white sheet creased around her. She couldn't feel the glass from the vase cutting into her feet. She couldn't feel anything anymore. 

~~*~~

Angel barely listened to the radio, Cordelia's station, as he blazed down the highway towards Sunnydale. His mind was awash with thoughts and words. He knew Cordelia was right: Buffy was with Spike now and they loved each other. He didn't care. All he wanted was to be near someone he knew wouldn't betray him, someone he knew was still true to him. He needed that truth again. Buffy was all of those things. She could heal his broken heart with her kindness and truth. He had convinced himself of Buffy's innocence and nothing was going to change his mind, especially Cordelia's words. The Sunnydale sign sent a cold shiver down his cold spine. He was going back to a familiarity and innocence that would heal him. That was good, right?

__

"There's nothing left to lose

There's no more heart to bruise

There's no greater Power

Than the Power of Goodbye"

Cordelia could now feel the cold from the stone floor seeping up into her bones. Her position hadn't shifted since Angel had left 2 hours prior. Not a single tear had fell from her eyes, instead she was reliving every moment of their argument, over and over again. Now the only person who had ever made her feel worth anything was gone and thought of her a dirt. The only person whom she had ever loved was gone. Gone back to the only person he had ever loved. Couldn't he see it wasn't her, she wasn't there. Conner had left soon after his father had. He had stared at her for a few seconds but she could not bear to look into the eyes of a man she had once considered her son. All of a sudden the feeling of disgust became too much. She ran into Angel's room, not stopping to see his absence, and straight into the showers. The warm waters did little to clean her disgust away but they did clear her mind slightly. As an automatic robot, she dried herself, avoiding the raw skin where she had scrubbed herself with a nailbrush, and grabbed some spare clothes from Angel's closet. The keys to her car where still sitting on the bed-side table where she left them after her nap earlier in the day. More clothes were bundled into a bag along with a toothbrush from his bathroom and a bottle of Angel's finest Scotch.

~~*~~

****

Later

Cordelia pushed the accelerator further into the floor after all, what highway patroller was awake at 1' O clock in the morning on a back road to a Hellmouth? Angel would have arrived 30 minutes ago and now Cordelia was passing the Sunnydale sign, battered and bruised just like her. She had to tell him the truth, about where she had been and what she had done. She had to make him believe her. As she pulled through Sunnydale, Cordelia drove down the street where she used to live. Her house was alive, the lights were on and, as Cordelia slowed, she could see a man and wife sitting at their table eating supper while the kids were tucked up in bed. The pain ripped through her as she remembered what her LA family used to be like. For the first time since Angel had left, a single tear trickled down her cheek. Everything had gone so wrong so quickly. First Wesley, then Conner, and now her. She pulled her cell phone out of her bag as she pulled up outside Buffy's house. After a few rings someone picked up.

"Hello Summers residence. Dawn speaking." The young voice filled the line.

"Hello, I'm looking for Angel of Angel Investigations. I was told I could find him at this number." Cordelia said in her most un-Cordelia voice.

"Yeah sure." Dawn pulled the phone away from her ear. "Angel, phone."

Cordelia heard the clunk as the phone was put down on the table and heard the footsteps as they walked towards it. She quickly hung-up the phone. At least she knew where he was. A quick glance at the clock on her dash board told her that it was 04:15. The sun would be rising in less than an hour. Cordelia was praying that Angel wasn't planning on staying over with Buffy, as she sat in her car, a little down the street from Buffy's house.

****

At The Summer Residence

"Who was on the phone?" Buffy asked, still dealing with the fact that Angel was standing in her living room while Spike happily watched a 'Passions' re-run.

"I don't know, they hung-up." He picked up his duster from the chair beside Spike. "I better get going. it's only an hour until sunrise and I have to unpack."

Buffy nodded and walked Angel to the front door. "I'm glad you're back, Angel, I really am, but you have to realise that things have changed. I'm not 17 years old anymore, I can't give you what you need when I don't even have it inside of me."

Angel nodded. "I didn't come back for that. I'm back because I suddenly realised that LA was a dream, never the home I thought it was."

Buffy watched Angel leave, the sadness in his eyes unsettled her. He wouldn't tell her what had happened but whatever it was had hurt him pretty badly. If she didn't know he was a Vampire, then she would have sworn someone broke his heart. But that was impossible, Vampires didn't have hearts like that, she thought to herself.

~~*~~

Angel could smell the familiar scent of leather and vanilla. "Cordelia. What are you think you are doing here?" He asked through gritted teeth. 

"This is my home remember!" She said, her Queen C façade stopping the tears from falling. Her heart twisted at his face as she called Sunnydale her home. "I came here to make you see. That wasn't me! It was my demon!" She shouted at him, hoping something would make it through his dense head.

"Cordelia. You are your demon. Isn't that what you keep telling me?" Angel sneered.

"No, we're not the same. I have my demon because I wanted to save the life you haven't had yet. You have your demon because you wanted to get your rocks off behind a bar."

Angel backed off at her truths. He began to walk away from her. Her footsteps fell into time behind his. Her scent rushed forward every time she took a step. She was wearing the duster he had given her. As he neared the drive to the mansion, he felt her soft touch on his shoulder. He turned around, his game face on. She didn't flinch or stare at him in disgust, she began to cry again as she walked up behind him. 

"Angel I can't change what you think but you can't walk away from me knowing you never gave me a change to explain." She pleaded.

"I don't thin you should be here right now. I'm not in the most rational of moods." He muttered, still in game face.

"I have no where else to go." She said, simply and quietly .

Angel looked confused. "Where are you staying?" he asked curtly. 

"Well I didn't really think about that when I was driving after you at 100m/h." Hands on hips.

"You better stay here then." He muttered in response.

Cordelia turned and walked away from him.

"Where are you going? I said you could stay here."

Cordelia turned slowly, her head hung low. "My bag is in my car, my car is at Buffy's"

It suddenly clicked into place and he simply walked up to the mansion. His mind was spinning faster than before. Cordelia was angering her more and more each second but he couldn't find it in his heart to turn her away. He would never live with himself if something happened to her. Part of him wished she would just own up to what she had did but part of him never wanted to hear the words. 2 days ago he had been the happiest Vampire in the world and now his world had crashed around him. Conner was gone and Cordelia had betrayed him in the worst way. He never thought she would be capable of that. It was almost child molesting. He started the fire up again. He didn't have body heat but Cordelia did and he didn't want her to get ill. He mentally hit himself for the concern.

He removed the blazer and stared into the rising, orange flames. They were drawing him into their world. Angel heard the catch on the door closed as he rose to see his visitor. Cordelia stood there with her head bowed, her bag limp in her hand.

"Pick a room, any one but the master suite and there should be hot water if you want to get clean but good luck with that one." Angel turned his gaze back to the fire adding more wood. 

Cordelia climbed the main wooden staircase up to the upper floor. She stopped by an open door. It was Angel room. It looked nothing like the one in LA. This one was dreary and only had one bookcase in it. At hom…in LA his room was painted blue and had lots of books, even a TV. It had life, this one just looked dead. She walked to the end of the corridor and looked into the room. Everything was covered in dust sheets. She began to peel them off and went for sheets to make up bed in what looked like an airing cupboard. Cordelia unpacked her old baggy training joggers and a tank top, laying them carefully on the bed as if they might break, or she would. The shower was hot, almost too hot for her to bear but that was good. She could see the red scald marks where the jet hit her skin and the marks from her shower before. Her hand reached out and groped the stiff nailbrush she had brought from home. The pain brought a different feeling from the one she was already feeling. Even though it wasn't really her that had slept with Conner, she had the demons memories. They lived in her soul where she would replay them at will. Sometime she just couldn't stop them washing over her.

The clock now read 05:30 and Cordelia still couldn't bring herself to sleep. Her fleece was the only thing between her and hypothermia from the temperature of the hall way as she tiptoed down the stairs toward the still raging fire. The look on his face, in his eyes when he had found them in bed played over before her. Ways of showing him where she had been all that time were playing over in her head. She could trying calling Skip down here, a Vulcan mind-melt, she didn't care what it took. She had to make him see she was telling the truth. Without his friendship she felt empty inside, hollow. The sickness in her stomach hadn't gone away but the pain from the nailbrush was keeping it all in check so she didn't just fall apart there and then. Cordelia had promised that she wouldn't never get this close to anyone, not even her future husband, whoever he was. Now she had let in a soulful Vampire, a renegade Watcher, a wacky physicist and a self-confessed Demon fighter.

"I know you're there." Cordelia said softly to the shadows.

Angel slowly stepped out and sat down on the opposite side of the marble platform, fireplace. Cordelia curled her hands up in her lap, wishing she had worn a full-length sleeve fleece. Angel stared at the yellowing scabs on her arms. He reached out and them quickly withdrew.

"What happened?" He asked in a whisper, pointing at the red welts on her arms and stomach. 

Cordelia jerk them away from sight. "I was dirty." She said like a small child.

Angel stood up and walked over to the kitchen, the banging of pans shattering the silence. Cordelia turned her gaze back to the fire, her hand slowly edging towards it. It was jerked back again when Angel sat near her, a metal pan with sweet smelling liquid in it. He reached at her with a cloth and she drew further into herself until she could go no further. Angel manage to contact the cloth with the raw skin. He waited for her jerking reaction again but it never came even though he knew how much it stung.

"It's Camomile. It helps it to heal without scaring." Still she didn't answer him.

The silence stood between them for minutes that felt like hours and an hour that felt like days. Only the sound of Cordelia's breath filled the void between them until she looked up him, still scared to look him in the eye for fear of what she might see.

"I'm telling the truth Angel. I wish I could let you see but you'll never believe me. I'm sorry no matter what I've done."

Angel growled lowly. "I don't want to talk about this."

Cordelia nodded and stood up. She didn't look back as she made her way back upstairs, trying to draw the fleece further around her.

~~*~~

The sheet were crumpled around him as the Vampire tossed and turned like a torture soul. His knuckles turned a whiter shade as he gripped the sheets for dear life, scared of being dragged into the dream reality. Muttering escaped his lips, game face slipping on and off. Then his face calmed and a small smile appeared on his lips.

Cordelia was placing flowers around the office as Doyle sneezed and dried his eyes. He was complaining of his allergy to flowers and Cordelia was beating him down, telling him was to make Angel feel more connected to the living. He was watching their playful banter from afar, glad that he could smile again, he was allowed to. Now he was standing watching himself, sitting in his office reading a book of sonnets. Cordelia marched in and grabbed the book from his our-reached hands and dragged him to his feet. She was telling him that just because he was a socially defunked Vampire didn't mean that she had to stay in as well. Since Angel was the cause of her staying behind, then he was going to treat them both to a movie and some popcorn. 'I'm going too get you out of that brood-fest. It will give you wrinkles before your time…that doesn't really bother a never-aging Vampire does it?' She still dragged him out to watch 'Ocean Eleven'. Angel let out a little laugh in his dream. Now he was watching the day that they found out about his Shansu. Cordelia was there watching his face, hugging him, whispering in his ear that she would be there until he did.

Angel awoke from his dream reaching from the Seer who brought him to life on to find cold, empty space where Cordelia would have been.

__

"When I wake up without you

Knowing you're not there

I'm only feeling half as good

Well I'm gonna find a way

To wrap you in my arms

You make me feel alive"

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Now you wanna leave a review? I don't mind flames…honestly. 'All words are of wisdom'

Nutty


	2. Everything

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Chapter Two - Everything

Cordelia knew that the Vampire wouldn't be up. It was 9:30 in the morning and after no sleep, she decided she needed some serious help if she was going to put her family back together again. Buffy already knew she was here so it was only a matter of time before the rest of the Scoobies found out that part of the Fang Gang were in good old Sunnyhell. The last thing she wanted to do was explain herself to them as to why they weren't talking, she couldn't even explain it herself. There was one friendship that Cordelia had rebuilt. Willow, the girl who helped tear her heart apart was the closest thing Cordelia had to a friend in this hellhole. Willow wouldn't judge her and she was a powerful witch. If there wasn't a Pylean demon around to read her mind then the next best thing was Willow. Cordelia was past caring what people thought of her all she wanted was her Angel back. The only problem lay in the fact that Willow now lived with Buffy and the never-dying Slayer was the last person Cordelia wanted to see. Angel had mentioned that Buffy had a job as a school councillor so Cordelia hoped that she would be at Sunnydale High by now. She raised a hesitant fist to the door but it was opened before she could knock.

"Oh Cordelia! Jeeze, I knew Angel was here but Buffy didn't say she had seen you too." The red-head exclaimed, removing earphones from her ear. "I was just going for a jog. Only safe in the day-time kinda past-time."

"I just got in this morning." Cordelia answered meekly, not liking to lie to her new found friend. "I was actually coming to see you. I need your help with something but I'll come back later if your busy." Cordelia drew the long sleeves of her top over her clenched fists and began to walk away.

"No, Cordy, come back. It's just a little ploy of Giles to try and get me to relax. I swear 7000 miles away and he is the boss man. So what can I do for you?" Willow asked, directing Cordelia into the Summer's home.

Cordelia sunk defeated into the couch. "God, Willow, I don't know where to start. You know about the whole half-demon thing I have going on well let's just say it isn't as plain as simple as that. I was meant to met Angel at this point on the coast, we were going to talk." Cordelia started to cry as the memories of that night swept over her

Willow gently held her hand as the sobs overtook Cordelia's body. The witch's face was now filled with concern and confusion. What could be so bad that it would cause Cordelia to cry out in front of her. Willow let go of Cordelia's hand as she found her composure. 

"But before I got there, Skip stopped me. He told me that I was never meant to meet Angel that night, instead my destiny lay as a Higher Power. Trust me as far fetched as this might sound, I was there. Can anyone say 'Day's Of Our Lives'? So I went up to…where ever the Powers live and there I stayed. But my demon counterpart stayed behind and decided my life would be a great one to muck around with. So while I was sitting up there, bored out of my mind this demon was walking around as **me**. I..I mean _it _did some pretty horrific things. It slept with Connor, Angel's son. Angel found them just as I finally made it back into my own body and kicked my demon back into kingdom come only Angel won't believe it wasn't me. He hates me so much Willow." Cordelia began to cry. "He even moved away from LA. What have I done?"

Willow pulled the sobbing Seer into her shoulder. "Shh, Cordy, it's OK. I know how Angel must have reacted. He isn't exactly Mr-Dealable. I don't get where I help here. I can't convince Angel anymore than Xander can and I can't see that happening anytime soon."

"I was thinking more magical intervention. You're a powerful witch Willow. You must something that will allow Angel to read my mind or see where I have been. I'm desperate Willow." Cordelia noted Willow move away from her. "What? I know it sounds crude but I think it is the only way."

"No, I understand Cordelia but I thought you knew. I don't practise magic anymore. I got into trouble, hurt people, killed people. Giles brought me back…I lost control of my power and I can't do it, ever."

Cordelia looked as if he world had just ended. All her hopes, life and future rested on this one favour from a friend. Now Willow had had just wrecked everything.

__

*Now that I'm down on my knees, 

Begging for change

Look down at the water

Before I jump in

To find I was sinking fast

In all that might have been*

If she couldn't be with Angel then why did she even bother. "Willow, I understand that but you're better now. We need your help. I need your help. I would never ask anyone but if I lose Angel then I have nothing left to live for. It's just like when you lost Tara, magic and the Powers screw everything up…"

"I can't Cordelia. I can't risk it, I could kill someone. I'm sorry. Maybe if I contact Giles…"

"No!" Cordelia shouted in protest. She stood up. "I couldn't bear it if anyone else knew. It doesn't matter."

"I'm sor…" Willow never got a chance to finish as the front door slammed shut and Cordelia was gone.

****

Later

She must have been walking for hours, the sun had set an hour before and the night had brought a plunge in temperature, not that the girl on the street could feel the biting cold. She couldn't feel the cold, her body was too numb in hopelessness. This wasn't who she was but it was all she could be. Cordelia Chase was strong, never let anything defeat her. She was sick of fighting. She fought and fought for the Powers and all they did was let her down. She battled the evil that they couldn't and this was how they repaid her. All she wanted was to be loved by someone but they couldn't even give her that. Cordelia had reached rock-bottom and there was no sign of an exit sign.

"Well, well, well. Who do we have here?" A mocking voice called to her as she turned to greet it. "Cordelia Chase. Well haven't we slipped down a peg or two."

Cordelia turned around to find Bailey Matthews, a jock from her year at high school was standing in front of her in full vamp-fight mode.

"Wow, I haven't seen you since Graduation. What a blast that was. Next thing I know I'm clawing my way through the ground in a funeral suit. I feel great though. You don't seem to be very scared of me though."

"You're not the first Vampire I've seen Bailey. Jeeze I live in LA, we are just swimming in them there." Cordelia muttered backing away. Bailey was strong as a human, she had felt it before.

"Right so you know the drill then. You scream, I chase you and then I eat you. So…um, start running."

Cordelia pulled the stake out of her purse and stood firm to her spot. "Bring it on Matthews."

He ran for her and Cordelia stood firm, ready to block his first punch but he swept her legs form under her. She fell to the ground with a thud and looked up to find Bailey towering over her, fangs posed. 

"Come on then. Just kill me. Take it all away." Cordelia cried as she felt herself fall again. "Make my pain go away." 

Cordelia closed her eyes and waited for the fangs to pierce her neck. Instead she felt a breeze and then the fluttering of snow on her face. She opened her eyes to find Bailey gone, Angel standing over her, with worried eyes and ash clinging to her clothes. When he realised she was OK, Angel turned away. 

"Wait!" Cordelia called to him. "Why did you save me if you hate me so much? I mean it isn't as if I'm an innocent, I have a demon inside of me."

"You're a Power. I swore to protect them until I turned human. 

"How can I be a Power Angel? I have a demon inside of me. They screwed up, they got it wrong."

Angel stood there, not knowing what to say the woman staring up a him. Staring at him with pleading eyes. Pleading with him to make it all right again. He turned away from her again. This time she didn't call him back instead when he turned around he found Cordelia gone, nothing but her coat abandoned to a tombstone.

He couldn't tell you how long he had wandered through the dark streets of Sunnydale, nor could he tell you where he had been. He couldn't tell you what he was feeling because right now the angel with a soul was overwhelmed by feelings that he couldn't tell you where one stop and the other began. Angel found himself back in front of the mansion. He looked at the blackened, shadowed walls and felt alone, something he wasn't a stranger to. For the first time in 3 ½ years he felt empty. After Buffy, he had promised himself that he wouldn't become dependant on people. And here he was again, hurt and alone. If this was what humans could do, he didn't want to be one again.

The door felt even heavier than usual. It resembled his mood. The lights were off, the room clocked in a husky darkness. He could smell her in the room, a mixture of salt, vanilla, and fear. Angel hated the stench of fear, the way a mouse feared the snap of the trap. He peered through the darkness and saw her figure hidden behind the raw flames of the fire, pressed between the fireplace and the sandstone wall at 90° . She seemed so small, so fragile, so innocent. Angel couldn't believe that the woman that he had slowly grown to love was capable of hurting him so badly.

"Cordelia?" He called weakly knowing she was there. 

Cordelia slowly lifted her head and searched the darkness for the voice that had called her. Angel gasped at her face. He could see the scratches on her face from the previous fight. Her eyes were sunken into her face, cheek bones protruding from her pale face making her look half starved. But what frightened him the most was her eyes; they seemed as dead as his heart. The light he had loved so much about her had gone, and it was all his fault. He walked slowly towards her and she drew further into the wall. As he reached out to her, the door behind him opened, causing him tot urn away from his Seer. 

"Angel, get away from her, she didn't do anything wrong."

Angel backed up and walked away from Cordelia towards Willow. "What do you mean, she didn't do anything wrong? How do you know what she did?"

"She came to me for help but Buffy told you what happened last time I used magic. I owe Cordelia so much. She was a bitch to me, I caused her to doubt love. I think she came off worse. I can do a spell, put her memories into an orb and let you watch them. That orb can't lie, memories don't lie!" She saw Angels concerned face. "Don't worry, it's no kicks magic, in fact it is painful for me to take someone's memories from their mind.

"Cordelia, Cordelia?" Angel called her name but she didn't respond.

Willow walked over and took a self-tranced Cordelia by the hands. "What have you done to her?" She asked in a low whisper knowing the Vampire would hear her. "Cordelia I need you to hold this orb in your hands and concentrate on it. I'm gonna do a spell, it may hurt a little but it will help."

Willow placed the orb in the Cordelia's cupped hands, still worried about Cordelia's trance-like state. If Cordelia's memories missed the orb they might go anywhere and she might never get them back. Willow stood back, the incantation in her hand. It was in English but couldn't be said out loud, it was the telepathic link that moved the memories. She started to whisper the words in her head, her eyes closed. She felt a ripping pain in her mind as the spell fired into Cordelia's head. The spell was over and Willow opened her eyes. Cordelia still stood in a trance, as expected, while still holding the now-glowing orb.

"Did it work?" Angel asked from the side-lines. 

Willow gripped the orb and looked at it.. "Yeah it worked!" She handed it to Angel. "It's like a slideshow of her memories, when you see the one you want to look at, you just click on it. Kinda like a link on the internet." She looked at the realisation on his face. Maybe Cordelia had, had a bigger effect on Angel than they had first thought. "I'm going to lie down in Cordelia's room. Be careful Angel, memories are fragile.

She left Angel in the brighter room, lightened by the glowing orb of repeating pictures. He watched them scroll by; Cordelia as a girl waving sadly at a retreating car. Crying beside a grave, fresh with flowers. He saw her face when she was showing Xander a dress, the one she wore to prom, he thought. He saw what happened to her when she first arrived in LA, happy to be demon-free but so terrified it scared Angel to the core of his dead heart. Finally the memories of the gang came to mind. He stopped a memory showing the after affects of Dolye's death. Angel frowned at his attitude. He should have comforted her more, but he was too wrapped up in his own grief to notice just how much Cordelia was hurting. Angel furrowed his head, shame filling his mind. He has still been reeling from Buffy's visit and then Doyle…He hadn't seen just how much she had changed since Doyle had jumped, how she had drawn into herself after Barneys attack, how she became afraid of what Doyle had given her. The memory ended and scrolled by.

Angel watched the intro's to when Darla had shown up, just helpless Cordelia had felt when she was showing up in his dreams. How hurt she had been when Darla announced that Angel was going to be a daddy, the ballet, Groo. Cordelia stored every moment, he marvelled. Finally he reached Cordelia's ascension. Angel watched as she argued with Skip the night she was due to meet him at the Point but in the end she had accepted her destiny. He watched her rise into the sky and the globe went black. Angel called out in surprise but Cordelia neither heard nor moved. If she wasn't in Connor's bed there could be no memory of it. The Vampire slid to the floor in horror. All the things he accused her of, all the things he had called her. He stared up at his Seer. She was still his frustrating Seer, the heart of Angel Investigations. Her demon aspect was gone, she was back. Angel shifted the image of Cordelia and Connor together into the back of his mind where he kept his demon. There as a memory that could not be purged but could be hidden well. How could he have doubted the woman he loved? How could he have hurt her so badly again? Clothes weren't going to make everything OK this time and he doubted anything could. 

Willow stood at the top of the stairs watching the crumbling Vampire. The guilt and pain must have been unimaginable, she thought. In one single thought, Willow realised just what Angel and Cordelia were. They weren't just warriors, fighting for and invisible force or two lost souls trying to put the world to rights. Somewhere along a strange, rocky road, they became each others everything.

__

*You are the strength that keeps me walking

You are the hope that helps me trust

You are the life to my soul

You are my purpose

You are my everything*

Willow walked slowly towards the couple, crouching down to Angels level. He still sat on the floor, the orb tight in his hands. He wanted answers and he had got them.

"Are you finished? Do you want to see them again?" Willow asked gently

Angel looked up at her with tear-laden eyes. "NO! I never want to see it again. I should never have believed…" He trailed off. "Give her them back."

Willow took the orb over to Cordelia and placed it in her still cupped hands. As Willow took a step back, the orb relit, a purple haze bathing the Seer. Her hollow features stood out even more, the bruises on her face now black. Willow closed her eyes and began the reversal spell. The orb glowed brighter than before and then a pyrotechnic flash. The orb shattered in Cordelia's hands, falling to the floor and she blinked.

"What happened?" She asked the witch in front of her, looking at the glass on floor, the Vampire on the ground with tears on his cheeks. "Well?"

"You asked me to prove what your demon did when you were in a higher plain. He seen the truth, he seen what your demon did to Connor."

Cordelia slowly wrapped her arms around the witch that used to hate her and whispered thank-you in her ear. Willow smiles and turned for the door leaving them to pick up the broken piece, of the orb and the heart.

Neither spoke for a few minutes. Cordelia pulled her sleeves down while Angel sat like a marble statue on a sandstone floor.

"Can you forgive me?" She asked softly, sitting on the floor at Angels level.

"You did nothing wrong."

"Can you forget what my demon did?" She asked, rephrasing her original question.

He looked away and that was all the answer she needed.

"Can you forgive me for not trusting you? Angel asked as timid as a child. 

"No." She simply said. I trusted you when I shouldn't have; Darla, the massacre at Holland's mansion. I believed in you."

Cordelia rose from the stone floor and picked up the long abandoned duster. She placed it on her shoulders. With one last, long look back, she opened the heavy oak doors and walked into the night. The night, she knew, would claim her but not this night. This night was hers as much as the day was. Maybe the sun she had willingly forsaken would teach her to forgive or maybe all she needed was time. Time was one thing she did have as she walked down the leafy Sunnydale street.

__

*This will fall down

Like everything in the world

This too must end

And everything else that was

We can't take back*

****

Well that's all folks. I am right now working on getting all my ongoing Angel fan fiction finished. Hope you liked it and most of the grammatical errors in this story were for the purpose of the story. As far as I know the lyrics were:

1) Life house - Everything

2) Matchbox 20 - Last Beautiful girl

Tell me what you think please. Took me 7 months to write!!!!

Nutty


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